Pretty Well

People tell me that I'm doing pretty well right now as I'm dealing with a number of difficult tasks. It stops me each time someone says that because I'm not even thinking about how well I'm doing. I'm not thinking about how what I'm doing even has an emotional context — I'm simply doing what I need to do. That's what it seems like to me.

But when someone tells me I'm doing pretty well, or that I'm doing great, a small alarm goes off inside my mind. Why wouldn't I be doing well? Is there something I don't know? Because I am not paying attention to the larger picture. I'm looking at each discrete task and achieving it, or figuring out how to achieve it. I completely forget why I have to remove things from the house, why I have to arrange for movers, why I have the vague feeling that each day here is one more closer to my very last.

What this all means is that the emotional context will come crashing down on me all at once and swamp me. I can accept that. I hope it waits until I'm home again.

A More Civilized Pace — Please!

Change. I know life is full of it, but I do remember when the changes in my life were more leisurely, when they weren't falling over each other in their eagerness to meet me, when they weren't pulling me along at rocket-speed and dangling me behind them like a toy on a tether.

I complain about everything, right? But my life seems to be on a bullet-train of change. I'm half a century old: change should slow down! Just let me catch my breath, at least. And how about balancing things out with some positive changes, such as financial independence (or at least security), and love and friendship (close on a geographic scale, please)?

I'm not a jet-setter. I'm not an adrenaline-junkie (but there are a couple of things I wouldn't mind trying again). I may walk briskly, but I also like to "stroll about, lookin' at the shops."* I love spending long, slow hours with friends and family, telling stories and laughing, taking long and scenic drives, playing games, and watching children play. I love spending time with someone special, curled up at opposite ends of the couch, and reading news articles, comics, and book passages to each other. I like to savor.

Mind you, I'm not only slow. I enjoy fast-paced movies and books. I love to watch MythBusters and the more explosions the better! I like fast rides and short lines. There's nothing like running and laughing with children until everyone collapses with exhaustion and giggles.

My social life at home is too slow: it's dead. With no work, my days drag. If I weren't paralyzed with fear over my impending complete brokeness, I could at least write. On the other hand, there have been jobs, Mom's cancer and death and all the many months of follow-up to that (that are speeding up now), and changes in my social life that brought it to death, freelance gigs, meeting people professionally — it's cocaine one one side and pot on the other, but not balanced and neither healthy nor fun.

Do you know what I want? 

1. Financial independence, or at least financial security, so I don't worry all the time, expending my energy fruitlessly.
2. Friends with whom I spend time with frequently.
3. Enough to do without it being too much. If I work for pay, then less than 40 hours a week and little or no commute: why spend my life on things that don't add to it? If I don't need to work for pay, then enough volunteer work and activities to keep me interested and interesting but that leaves me with plenty of time and energy to spend in other ways.
4. Someone special to spend that time with on the couch.
5. Two cats.
6. An office and studio that is full of light and comfort and that inspires creativity. In fact, an entire house like that. My house.

I know life is full of change, and that you cannot control all of it, or even most of it. I know change comes at all speeds, but lately I've felt exhausted by it. I want some good change in my life, and for my vehicle of change to move a bit slower. I don't need to ride in a stealth bomber.

*Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed

Fine. Be That Way.

Yet again, no help is offered from Life. "You are so strong!" "Look at how much you've done!" "See? You have already done it!" Sigh.

Maybe from your perspective, but not so much from mine. I can see how much more there is to do. And I'm TIRED!!!! So I want a little help. (Yo, Universe! A little help?)

I don't want to recreate the wheel. If there are established ways that work in my situation, that help to develop more positive mental states that last, then it seems to me that following those paths would be efficacious. This is not necessarily a time when "go the way less travelled" or "go your own way" or thinking outside the box is the good option.

Fix now, creative later.

===

Much later ...

I've spent the evening with my neighbors on the south side of the house. They rock. I haven't had any alcohol for awhile due to my previous psych saying "no no" due to the medications I'm on (other medical folks have been less stringent), and they gave me some wine. Then some more wine. Then dinner. Then, when it was just me and her (because he was asleep on the couch in front of the TV), homemade kahlua and cream over ice. Mmm. And lots of talking about Mom and grief and Mom's choices about the estate and about their family and about my special friend (because they were a couple I shared the potential with back when it started) and all kinds of stuff. I haven't been tipsy in quite awhile. If I can, I'm going to join them for their 7:30 am walk. If not tomorrow, then definitely the following morning. Tomorrow I may not manage it. I am feeling pretty darned good.

Anyway, I got plenty of validation about being alone and trying to do things alone and it being difficult and nothing about being all positive. I liked it. I know other people are trying to be helpful, but it is also very helpful for someone to say "yes, you are alone. yes, it is hard. I hear you and my heart goes out to you. Have some more wine."

I had a great time.  Now I'm tipsy. And tired. I'll write tomorrow when I can function mentally.

A Cry for Help in the Darkness

Anger, resentment, discontent, desire, scarcity: these feelings fill my mind and my heart far more than any positive emotions. I tried very hard to develop more positivity in my thoughts and was doing pretty well, I thought. 

Slowly, stealthily, the positive thoughts and constructs leaked out of my mind and the dark, negative thoughts slid in. I didn't even notice, the dark ones feel so familiar. I feel consumed by the unfairness of life, grief, and loss. There's a positivity-sized hole in my mind: how do I stop it so I can keep my mind balanced and positive? After all, a friend spent an entire week writing about positivity in response to my desire for validation for my less-than-positive reality.

My mind is not a happy place to reside in. I cruise my usual blogs, but comment seldom because the useful- and/or positive-comment area of my brain is empty. All around me, fairies are falling to the ground and kittens are crying. I can feel my hair and my clothing turning black. What's the music Emo kids listen to these days?

When my mind is filled with sadness and despair, my body hurts. One of the joys of fibro, but it's also a side-effect of depression. My sleep is affected and pretty much everything sucks, thus completing the feedback loop that says the Universe is a dark and dreadful place.

It's like a prison. I want out.

It seems I am always saying — and asking for — help. This case falls under a request for help doing or learning to do something. I want a coach to help me regain my positive frame of mind, my reality-tinged optimism of former days. A coach who is sensitive to what I've gone through, the validation I need, and who won't go all perky and chipper on me. But I expect that, as usual, I will be left to do this all alone. Again. I honestly think this makes the process go much more slowly, leaving me depressed and and full of darkness for much longer. I can't see how this helps me. But then, it's not the Universe's place to be helpful or play fair. The Universe is just what it is. 

But maybe the force and energy that is Life will help me out a little. Something, someone, please give me some help here.

Something Else Tonight

No actual post. I'm doing my homework tonight and tomorrow morning. I'm at the point in the story where Mom dies, so that's going to kind of take up all I have to give for now.

Body Battle

My body and I are in a struggle right now. It's not life or death, it's more like which lane to drive in. Kinda.

Basically, I don't feel much like eating. If it's a popsicle or some ice cream, I'd eat it, but I don't feel like going out and getting food. I have salad stuff, bread, butter PB, eggs. I'm out of milk and berries. So I do have food, but it's food that doesn't spark any craving or interest in me. Part of me knows I should eat something, for many reasons, such as not throwing my body into famine mode. But my body isn't particularly sending me any hunger messages and I'm just not interested. It's been a very long time since I've had this response to stress and anxiety. It beats eating a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting! (I did that after my cat died.)

My mind is suggesting things like going out and getting some fast food, including a dessert. It might slide past my "I don't feel like eating" stance and it should definitely bump my body out of feelings of famine. But I'd need to keep giving it sufficient calories to keep that state going.

I've lost a little weight, but part of it is a loss of muscle mass because I'm so sedentary. When I go off to deal with the Estate next week, there will be plenty of exercise involved. Packing and unpacking boxes, lifting and putting down. And there are hills and a beach just made for walking on. Perhaps if I'm moving around I will feel hungry.

I haven't yet decided what to do tonight. I don't think the dark chocolate with chili bar has sufficient calories and I can only eat a square or two at a time anyway, which is why I bought it. I'm giving more thought to driving to some fast food place, maybe Wendy's because they have a pretty good fish sandwich and I could get by without ever going to a McDonald's again. I haven't eaten beef in well over a year, so having a hamburger would just give me a stomach ache. And I don't want to go out to eat; tonight I'm not up to doing so alone.

If only I weren't so bored by Chik fil A — they are the closest fast food place. Their real milk shakes and their lemon pie are awesome, but the food just makes me yawn now.

I can put together a basic salad — nothing special — but there aren't many calories in that. And my mind-body thing is saying "ho hum". I could hard-boil a couple of eggs — my body isn't saying no to that. But it still isn't high in calories.

I think there is a very real business niche for dessert delivery. I would pay more to have ice cream or cake delivered to me in the evening so I don't have to get dressed and go out and get it myself. 

Still I sit here, battling with my body about whether or not to eat something and if so what. At least I'm losing some of that extra weight I put on!

Value-Added Sleep

Sleep is good for you — we all know that. People have different needs for sleep and vastly varying sleep schedules.  Some folks nap and some don't.

And some of us sleep away the majority of a day without planning to do so. Today I felt immensely tired at 1:30, so I set my alarm for 3:00 (2 alarms, actually). I don't remember turning them off. I woke up just before 7pm, just before another alarm went off. 

I certainly didn't accomplish anything to day. Nor did I work up an appetite. I had a piece of buttered toast and two popsicles for dinner. And didn't get to the store for milk and berries.

I don't take regular naps. If I lay down, I'm going to sleep for at least an hour, usually two. If I sleep longer, well there's a reason. The reason right now is most likely being worn out from severe anxiety, and/or avoiding my life. There isn't much I can do right now about significant aspects of my life, so sleeping through some of it makes a certain emotional sense, if nothing else. Certainly it doesn't help my life. But I don't have the ability to help my life significantly right now, which is just not at all a nice place to be. Thus the sleep.

I'm up to taking an entire milligram of Ativan 3 times a day. It helps me reduce the anxiety (I don't grind my teeth and my shoulders can actually drop down away from my ears), but it also makes me sleepy at that level. I might try for 3/4 of a mg. Half just isn't doing it right now.

I'm half looking forward to working on the pre-sale work next week and the following. If I get involved and focused enough, I can refrain from thinking about all the crap that is making me so crazy and fearful. I can't do anything about any of it, so I might as well avoid it by doing something else.

But I need to stop sleeping during the day.  It really doesn't allow me to do things that will decrease my anxiety. Doing activities to avoid anxiety (even unconsciously), which raises it. Really effective.

Sometimes

Ya know, sometimes it's just not possible to be positive. And sometimes I want to be negative, or at least not-positive. This has been an ungodly shitty year, the latest in a life punctuated by unexpected and tragic losses and other traumas. (I am the poster child for fibromyalgia, which is thought to develop as a result of one major physical or emotional trauma, or repeated ones. I'm in on all counts.) Sometimes I need to acknowledge the shit.

I need to acknowledge that my life sucks right now and that the non-sucky part is still somewhere past the horizon and that it's quite possible that my life is going to suck even more in the very near future unless a series of miracles occur.

To me, being positive in the face of these things or, even worse, about these things is like saying they don't matter or they aren't real. It's unrealistic and irrational. Bad stuff must be acknowledged. Pain and fear and the very real possibly of going stone broke — even having spent my jars of coins on food — is right before my eyes. I can see it. That's not being pessimistic, that's being rational.

Acknowledging the bad doesn't give it extra power. I think that ignoring it gives it power; the power to overwhelm you because you were so busy positively ignoring it that all the realistic things you might have done you didn't.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to be all bright and hopeful and positive, I'm really on the edge of tears.

This has been my life. This is my life. If things entirely out of your control repeat in your life, is that a lesson? If so, mine appears to be that life is about pain and helplessness that slowly whittle you down to nothing over time.

I guess the main thing I'm trying to say is this: sometimes being positive and pushing the bad stuff aside invalidates the very reality of the bad stuff and the pain that has been happening and that is happening right now. And just because something good happens or I have a good day does not negate everything else that continues to be Not Good in my life. I've been doing all that I am able to do, from when all I could do is crawl out of bed in the morning and back into it in the evening until now when I can wash my breakfast dishes as well. I have not been capable of looking for a job in an organized or energetic or even useful manner if at all, so no money is coming in. All the affirmations and visualizations in the world have not brought me money through other means (bequests, lottery tickets, philanthropy, whatever). Reality says that if I don't become stone broke in the next 6 weeks, then I'm going to miss it by only a hair and that missing it might as well be luck.

So, this being positive thing. Don't take it to extremes. Doing so feels disrespectful and invalidating. I rather need some validation now and then throughout this terribly shitty time. I need some now. Just because I can manage a smile doesn't mean I'm not in hell.

The Art of Focusing

As was obvious from last night's post, I am feeling overwhelmed and not at all like I'm "handling" anything. I feel my greatest accomplishments are a) not dying, and b) not screaming. The only reason I wasn't hyperventilating today was because of one of my cute little quirks I have when I'm tense: I was holding my breath.

I'm one of those people with a noisy mind. Music, musings, conversations, commentary — it's all going on in my mind all the time. My mind is rarely quiet. It's quieter when I write, but then there is frequently my "talking" as I write and there are other things in my mind that may or may not make it onto the screen (or the paper, if I'm going low-tech). One thing I've noticed is that the more anxious I feel, the greater the noise in my mind. It's like the noises are faster and more shrill, winding up like the "hamster-wheel" meltdowns I've experienced in the past. There's a correlation, but I'd say that the increased anxiety probably causes the more agitated noise rather than the other way around.

The noise and anxiety and near panic were almost making me sick today. I have a lot of stress places on my body, and my stomach is one of them. During times of extreme stress and extreme physical and mental tightness, I've actually lost a great deal of weight, even when there wasn't much to lose. I have high hopes for this phase, because I'm sure as hell not hungry and when I do eat, the food ends up feeling like a solid lump in my stomach. Add to this some exercise due to the work I've got to do back at my mom's house and I should drop a good 10 pounds easily in two weeks. If I had a scale to measure myself on today, I'd do it, but I'll have to wait until I get to the house.

The noises in my mind today seemed to be ratcheting my anxiety higher, like a positive feedback loop, and I was quickly working up from panic to screaming, so I tried some mindfulness and meditative techniques to see if they helped. I focused very precisely on exactly what I was doing. I allowed myself to hear the sounds around me, such as the refrigerator compressor or the table fan. I felt my clothing on my body and focused on my cup of tea as I carried it to the couch and as I sipped it. If a bit of song slipped into my mind, I tightened my focus, listened for sounds around me and outside. 

This level of focus exhausted me. I don't have the discipline or the skill to maintain it for very long, so my quiet moments were short and choppy. But they were there. And when I was that focused, paying that much attention to what I was doing, I wasn't aware of anything other than what I was doing: I wasn't aware of panic and anxiety and hamsters and wanting to puke. 

So there are very good reasons to practice this kind of focus. Maybe doing so will save my sanity, what there is of it. If it keeps me from puking or screaming, that's a win right there! I think the anxiety/panic connects to the hamster-wheel meltdown — they are all part of the same craziness. If paying attention in an aware way calms the craziness pieces, it's worth taking the time to practice. And it will take time and energy because my mind just is not able to focus for that long. It's very hard work.

Of course, I'm likely to forget how focusing helped me today. Maybe having it written down here will help me remember, because I have a tendency to forget things that benefit me, or things I like to do, or things that will get me to where I want to be. Makes me want a personal secretary who, while telling me what appointments I have to attend and what phone calls I must make, will remind me to pay attention and to go for a walk and who'll make sure I have salads for dinner, too.

I know, I know. Post-Its. Lots less expensive than a personal secretary but they probably won't go out and get me lunch.

Not Dying

On the one hand, I think the folate/folic acid is working as an add-on to handle my depression. On the other hand, I think my anxiety has moved into stealth mode. It perks up when I start thinking about paying bills, but because I am in a very quiet mode where I'm focused on dealing with the house sale and the estate sale and having to go back to Oregon — many logistic details — I think my anxiety is simply being quiet, too. As long as I don't disturb it.

I'm glad that we're getting a chemical handle on the depression; I should be able to begin getting a personal handle on it, too. I'm also becoming more functional on some fronts — I'm not crying so much. But I wish we had a national short-term disability program, or at least have a disability program that didn't take years to get covered under, because I'm not fully functional yet and don't know when I will be.

I feel completely submerged by my current focus. It's like swimming in dark water with a flashlight: I can focus on only one section at a time. There are some other logistic issues that I've simply had to throw up my hands at and walk away from because I can't handle them right now.

Most folks handle all this stuff plus work a job plus handle a family. I don't think I could care for a cat.

I know everyone has been telling me I can handle it all and cheering me on and saying that the Universe/God/whatever never gives us what we/I cannot handle, but I've seen otherwise. I am experiencing otherwise. My anxiety is sitting there like an undetonated bomb — will it go off; how much vibration will set it off? I'm coping because I'm ignoring a lot of it and I'm desperately hoping that the bomb isn't triggered. If you judge that simply staying alive is "handling" what the Universe sends us, well that's no big deal; there are many reasons for not offing yourself that have nothing to do with indicating one is "handling" what the Universe has "given" you. Being a zombie for months or years, shutting off large sections of yourself or your life, living inside a very tiny virtual cocoon: I don't consider these ways of "handling" it. These are ways of not dying.

I look like I'm doing well to those outside my home. I probably look like I'm handling things better to those of you who read this. But for the most part, I'm really just not dying.

I'm going to do what I can do with the house and all. I can handle certain responsibilities and the pain/fear of not doing this stuff is greater than the pain/fear of doing it. There's a motivator for you. I'm terrified of dealing with my own storage unit, which is completely necessary to keep me from having to pay for two storage units with my own money.

Progress? It's been almost a year since Mom died. I can now wash my dishes after each meal (altho' today I am four meals behind) and I make my bed 75% of the time. Before you start cheering me on for these positive steps, please note that I haven't completely cleaned my bathroom or vacuumed since I moved in in December. I haven't finished unpacking. I haven't paid bills in a couple of months. When I venture out of my apartment it is notable. There are still a lot of things for me to trip and fall over on the floor. And I still don't shower every day (you really need to down here, what with the sweating and all).

Yeah, sure, celebrate the little steps I suppose. But they are like throwing pebbles in the ocean. So far, I'm just not dying. Now you're going to go and make that into some big positive thing, aren't you.